Booming Alberta: Okotoks thirsty for more water as town’s population swells

Okotoks Mayor Bill Robertson, standing, and town manager Rick Quail on the banks of the Sheep River, the only source of the town’s water supply.

Photograph by: Ted Rhodes Ted Rhodes
, Calgary Herald

OKOTOKS — Each day in the winter, Okotoks returns 80 to 90 per cent of the water it draws out of the Sheep River.

Residents of the burgeoning town use an average of 295 litres of water each day, pay extra if they want green lawns in the summer and face regular restrictions on water use.

Then, at least in the winter, most of the water used is treated and put back in the river.

“In order for us to grow, what we’ve had to do is implement some of the most aggressive water conservation, efficiency and productivity measures anywhere,” says Rick Quail, municipal manager for the Town of Okotoks. “We haven’t had a significant increase in our annual diversion, but we have been able to accommodate that additional 10, 15, 20,000 population.”

Indeed, Okotoks has grown.

Between 2006 and 2011, a recent Statistics Canada report shows it was the fastest-growing census area of between 10,000 and 100,000 people in the country — with its population spiking 42.9 per cent to 24,511 from 17,150 in 2006.

It now sits around 25,500 residents.

With growth comes the inevitable challenge of managing the need for more transportation, water, sewer, culture, recreation, libraries and schools.

But the most pressing matter for Okotoks is its water supply.

The community doesn’t have enough water to grow beyond 27,500 people — a challenge it now must face head on after council lifted its long-standing 30,000-resident population cap in the fall.

Residents like Allen King, who moved to Okotoks in 1957 when it was home to only 650 people, say growth was inevitable.

“It was going to come anyway, whether we liked it or not,” says the retired pharmacist. “If we didn’t do it, the municipality would have expanded all around us. We should be planning for the future.”

Patrick Lockhart, who moved to Okotoks six years ago, says it’s losing its small-town charm and becoming more of a city these days.

“It certainly makes life easier,” he says, “but the connection to nature is more important to a lot of people.”

One of Alberta’s leading water experts says he has larger environmental concerns about Okotoks’ move to lift the population cap.

“They are very proud of what they’ve done in terms of water conservation and they ought to be, but we always compare ourselves to ourselves in Canada,” says Robert Sandford, Canada’s representative for the United Nations Water for Life initiative. “That’s an unfortunate mistake because we are the second-largest per capita water users in the world.

“We’re profligate wasters.”

Furthermore, Sandford says Okotoks is basing its expansion plans on the amount of water it has now.

“It’s not that they aren’t thinking hard about it,” he says. “They are, but they are making choices based on the world as we see it today and they are making choices based on the world as we see it today.

“I would prefer that they had much more secure water supply assurances than they have presently before they expand so rapidly.”

Currently, the town’s water supply comes from the Sheep River.

In 2006, however, the province issued a final moratorium on allowing any new water licences from the South Saskatchewan River Basin, which includes the Sheep River.

So the Town of Okotoks has been looking for other solutions.

Mayor Bill Robertson says the pressures were building on the town’s borders with the approval of the Wind Walk development, which is currently being appealed in the courts by the town.

“That’s what turned the tide for me,” he says, noting he was able to support lifting the cap provided they find sub-regional solutions rather than building a pipeline from Calgary. A pipeline would not only have tied the town to the city’s water, but it also would have led to increased energy costs.

Instead, Robertson says they will try to find ways to further conserve water within the town and continue to buy up existing licences from private landowners or oil companies who have used the water for underground extraction.

Council has also asked the town to work with its other neighbours — the Municipal District of Foothills and the town of High River — to explore options on the Highwood River.

“Now that council has embarked and committed to a path of continued growth, Okotoks has no choice but to find an alternate water supply and a certainty of water supply going forward,” says Quail. “No choice.”

However, he holds out hope that the Alberta government will come up with ways to reward conservation efforts when it reopens the Water Act for consultations next year.

“We would hope it would deal with recognizing and incenting high-quality effluent return to rivers,” he says, referring to the town’s success in returning most of the water it uses back into the Sheep River.

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